/ma. By the Duke of Argyll. (Strahan.)—The noble proprietor of
Iona mast be held to discharge in the ablest manner the duties of pro- perty. He preserves the monuments of the island with much care and some success against the tourists—an unprincipled and destructive race --and he now gives the world an admirable essay about them. Iona is something very different from a guide-book, though it describes with sufficient accuracy the "sights " of the island. It really consists of an essay or essays on certain phases of history, social and ecclesiastical, and on the life and character of the remarkable man St. Columba, whose choice gave the insignificant island so singular a pre-eminence among its sister Hebrides. The first chapter, with its lucid but powerful sketch of Eastern and Western monasticism, and of -the position which must be assigned to the Saint of Iona, may be singled out for special praise ; but the whole volume is admirable, always written with grace, and often with eloquence, fall of graphic teaches of description, and the sugges- tive allusions which denote a mastery of the subject, and characterized throughout by breadth and liberality of thought.
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